


A Yellow Sky

by Edonohana



Category: The Long Walk - Richard Bachman
Genre: Bad Weather, Comfort Food, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dessert & Sweets, Escape, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Maine Shack, Pre-Slash, Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 03:43:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16468037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.





	A Yellow Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PositivelyVexed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PositivelyVexed/gifts).



None of the boys saw the sky turn yellow. They all had their gaze fixed on the road, or their feet, or each other. If they noticed the shift in the light, they thought they’d mistaken the time of day and they’d walked till late afternoon without noticing. At least, that was what Garraty thought: _Look at that light. Maybe I’ll make it another day._

He felt a pressure inside his head, and his ears popped. And then the soldiers were shouting, and Baker was tugging at his arm and pointing upward. 

Clouds swirled in the sky like cream stirred into coffee. At that thought, Garraty wanted, with desperate intensity, nothing more than to sit down and cradle a hot cup of coffee in his hands, and sip it while he watched another day begin. He didn’t even like coffee. 

If they stopped the walk for a tornado warning, maybe… Even his most wishful imagination couldn’t tell him the Major would let the Walkers sit down, let alone give them hot coffee. They’d be piled into the half-tracks, made to walk in place as the vehicles rumbled to some safer spot, then driven back to the walk. Walking all the way.

“Tornado!” went the talk up and down the straggling pack of boys. “They’ll stop the Walk! We can rest—sit—lie down— _sleep!_ ”

“Maine gets an average of two tornados per year,” said McVries, as calmly as if he was reading from the paper and to nobody in particular. “They generally don't do much damage. The Walk has never been called on account of weather.”

He was right, of course, Garraty thought bitterly. The soldiers sure weren’t going anywhere. 

But oh God, his feet hurt so much more now that he’d heard the words _sit_ and _sleep_ , now that he’d let himself think of anything but forward motion. His feet, his legs, his sore eyes, his pounding head, his cramping belly, his stiff neck. He forced himself to stare straight ahead, at the horizon line.

And so Garraty was the first to see the tornado touch down. It was immense, so vast that he could barely comprehend it, a whirling funnel that both bridged and dwarfed the earth and sky. He kept on walking, unable to even think of stopping, watching with dreamy, exhausted interest as it sucked up trees and fields and the odd farmhouse. 

It wasn’t until he saw a half-track go spinning up and away that he realized how close it was. Of course. That was why it was so big. It was nearly on top of them, and getting closer by the second. Some of the soldiers seemed to be shouting, their mouths opening and closing, but the roar of the tornado drowned them out.

McVries sat down in the middle of the road. Garraty bent and tried to drag him to his feet, shouting, “What are you doing? Get up!” 

He turned his head and spoke into Garraty’s ear, his mouth so close that Garraty could feel the movement of his lips. “I’m done. Let it take me up into the sky. Maybe then I’ll see it all. It’s so clear when you get up high…”

“Shut up!” Garraty had thought he had no strength left, but, frantic with the certainty that they’d both be given their ticket at any second, he grabbed McVries under the arms and dragged him to his feet, then forced him stumbling forward. One step. Two. Then he stopped, looking around bewilderedly. 

The Long Walk had become a Big Commotion. Garraty felt a bubble of hysterical laughter swell in his chest at the thought. The soldiers and the boys were no longer two unified masses of moving parts, but individuals making their own decisions. Several boys stopped where they were, staring up at the funnel. A soldier shouted a warning—Garraty had heard and seen enough of those by now that he knew by the movement of the lips—but another soldier grabbed him as he began to level his rifle and dragged him into a half-track. 

Some soldiers scrambled into half-tracks, and those half-tracks began rolling away. Other soldiers held their ground, trying to rally each other and guard the boys with silent shouts. Mike and Joe peeled off and bolted into the woods, and were gone before anyone could try to shoot or stop them. Scramm followed them. A spray of pale splinters went up from a tree just to the side of him, which Garraty realized belatedly must have been from a bullet. But Scramm kept on running, and vanished from sight. 

One soldier tried to strong-arm the staggering Olson into a half-track, but another soldier yanked them apart, pulling the man into the vehicle and shoving the boy back onto the path. He fell, tried to get up, and collapsed and lay still. Garraty watched in dumb amazement as he lay there, the seconds ticking away, and was not shot. 

The funnel swallowed the woods. It swallowed the sky. The noise filled the air, filled Garraty’s body. It was breaking his head apart. It was making his heart beat. 

More boys began to break and run. Garraty heard no shots, but saw a few soldiers fire, saw a few boys fall. Other soldiers began to run. Some dropped their rifles. Parker picked one up and began firing at them, his face distorted with rage or triumph. Caught by surprise, some fell and writhed on the ground until his bullets blew their heads apart. Feet braced, mouth open in a huge O, he kept on shooting until Olson picked himself up, grabbed Parker by the arm, and dragged him away. His other arm fell to his side, but he never dropped the rifle. The barrel made a winding line in the dirt like a snake track.

In just a few minutes, the Long Walk was over. Everyone had run away or driven away or lay dead. Only Garraty was left, with McVries leaning on him, his head on Garraty’s shoulder. And Stebbins, who had never wavered from his path and was still walking steadily down the road. The tornado rushed to meet him.

“Come on!” Garraty yelled, his paralysis breaking. 

He dragged McVries off the road. McVries staggered, then straightened and ran with him. Garraty was certain they were too late, and at any minute he’d find out if it was true that you could see more clearly from the sky. Before, of course, you were ripped apart or smashed to bits. 

Undergrowth crackled under their feet. Brambles scratched their legs, and twigs snapped across their faces. But though Garraty was tense and braced for it, they were not snatched up or tossed aside. Nor did any bullets strike them. They simply ran, caught in the grip of a terror more primal than anything they'd felt on the walk, driven by an instinct like that of the rabbit to flee from the fox.

Suddenly, they were out of the woods and in a blasted landscape of churned-up dirt, shredded metal, and splintered boards. The tornado had already been through this place on its erratic path. The boys stumbled to a halt. Behind them, the roar lessened. The tornado was moving away.

Garraty’s ears popped again. They rang loudly, but he could hear again. He didn’t hear gunshots or screams or the rumble of half-track engines or the slap of feet against asphalt. All he heard was the ragged breathing of the boy beside him.

And then, McVries’ hoarse voice. “See that piece of a sofa? This was a house. It might have a cellar.”

They picked their way through the wreckage, searching for something on the ground other than dirt. Had the devastation been less complete, they never would have found it; neither boy had the strength to dig through piles of heavy rubble. But the farmhouse had been ripped apart and scattered over a wide area, and it wasn’t long before Garraty, incredulous, found a trapdoor. He lifted it. There were steps leading down into the earth.

“Pete?” Garraty’s throat too was raw. It hurt to speak, and his voice sounded strange over the ringing in his ears. “You’re right. It’s here.”

“I’ll hold the door,” McVries said. He sounded unsurprised, as he had been unsurprised by the tornado. As if he'd walked until he'd left behind his capacity for it, like a backpack too heavy to carry for such a long and weary journey. “You see if there’s anything in there.”

“Like…?”

“Flashlights. Candles.”

Garrity walked down the steps, his legs wobbling, his feet numb. The cellar was partly full of junk, partly neatly organized, as if whoever had lived in the house had gotten halfway through spring cleaning when the tornado had hit. At that thought, he glanced nervously around. But no one was there. Either the owners had been gone when it had hit, or they’d been snatched up and flung far away. He saw jars of home-canned fruits and pickles and preserves on shelves, old tools, and stacks of boxes and chests. A tool chest contained a flashlight and batteries. He turned it on and shone the beam on McVries. “Come on down.”

McVries limped down the steps, closing the trap door behind him. He stood swaying on the concrete floor, his face pale, then sat on the floor as if his legs had given way. He gave an immense sigh of relief. “I thought the next time I did that, I’d die.”

It was only then that Garraty realized that he too could sit. Like McVries, he collapsed as much as sat, leaning partly on the other boy and partly on a stack of boxes. The pain in his feet, which had subsided to a dull ache in the back of his mind, flared up fiercely. But he was _sitting_ , and that was all that mattered. He was sitting, and he could keep sitting. He could even lie down, if he wanted. Nothing had ever felt so good.

“Now I know what you meant when you said you’d just sit down in the road,” Garraty said dreamily. “This is worth dying for.”

McVries shook his head. “No. It isn’t. None of it was.” 

Garraty didn’t know how long they sat there before McVries got up with a grunt of pain. He picked up the flashlight from the floor and shone it on the jars on the shelves. “Like peaches?”

“Sure!” Garraty’s mouth watered just at the word. 

McVries set the flashlight on a box, then brought over an armful of jars and put them on the floor. Garraty eagerly unscrewed the top, dipped in his fingers, and drew out a dripping peach half. It was sweet, drenched in a light syrup that soothed his throat. He ate another half, then another and another, before forcing himself to stop. He had to save some for McVries… 

Puzzled, Garraty saw that McVries was still standing, rummaging through boxes. “What are you doing? Sit down and eat!”

“Gotta do it now,” McVries muttered. “Once I sit again, I won’t get up.”

He dumped a small tool kit on the floor, opened more boxes, and finally turned one upside down. Heavy folded blankets fell to the floor with a thud. Garraty, feeling guilty over not helping before, crawled over to spread out the blankets into makeshift beds, then rolled on to the nearest one and pulled another on top of himself. 

“Lie down,” Garraty said, indicating the other set of blankets. “I saved you half the peaches.”

McVries sank to his knees on the blankets with another long sigh, but he didn’t lie down. Instead, he dragged over the little tool kit and flipped it open. Garraty leaned over on his elbows to get a better look, and saw that it was actually a first aid kit. 

“Take off your shoes,” McVries said. “If we wait, the blood and all will dry and we’ll rip our skin off trying.”

Garraty winced, more at the thought of touching his feet than at McVries’ words, but sat up and peeled off his shoes with as much delicacy as he could manage. It still felt like he _was_ ripping off his skin. His socks were blood-soaked rags, and his feet looked like raw meat. He reached for the kit, but McVries put up a hand. “Better let me. It’ll be easier, really.”

“I feel like I should bite on a bullet,” Garraty said. 

He’d been trying to joke, but McVries, unsmiling, said, “Use your belt. I don’t think anyone can hear us if we talk quietly, but a scream might carry.”

Garraty unbuckled his belt and bit down on the leather. It tasted like salt and dirt, but he was glad of it when McVries started cleaning his feet with antiseptic. By the time he was done, Garraty’s jaw ached, his fingernails had bitten into his palms, and his cheeks were wet with tears. He wiped at them, ashamed. McVries said nothing, and only began to smooth ointment on to the raw flesh. That stung fiercely, but also felt cool and soothing. When McVries wrapped his feet in gauze, that barely hurt at all. Finally, he eased on a pair of socks he’d found in one of the boxes. They were knit, someone’s winter wear, old but clean. 

Garrity looked down at his feet, and felt healed in some small and undefinable way. He watched McVries take off his own shoes, and wordlessly handed him the belt. “Like you said. It’s easier if it’s someone else.”

McVries took it and bit down, then closed his eyes. Garrity tried not to look at his face as he worked, but he could hear him breathing raggedly and sniffling. The knowledge that he wasn’t the only one who’d cried from pain didn’t make him feel better. Instead, he wished it didn’t hurt McVries so much. All he could do was try to be as thorough and quick and gentle as possible. 

In the end, McVries too examined his feet with an expression of startled relief. “I thought it’d be worse. I thought I might never be able to walk again.”

“It’s just skin,” Garraty said, though it sure hadn’t felt like any _just._ “It’ll grow back.” 

“I think the bones are bruised.” McVries shrugged. “Well—I guess that’ll heal too. If it gets a chance.” 

They cleaned off their filthy, bloody hands with wet wipes. Only then did McVries help himself to the peaches. He ate slowly but with visible pleasure. Then he and Garraty opened more jars, sampling watermelon rind pickles, bread-and-butter pickles, green tomatoes, spiced gooseberries, and even pickled eggs, which Garraty had always thought must be disgusting but which turned out to be not bad, and satisfied a hunger that the fruit and vegetables didn’t. They finished their meal with a jar of sugar-sweet plum conserves. 

Then, at last, they lay down. Garraty clicked off the flashlight and lay in the dark listening to McVries’ breathing. He’d expected to fall asleep instantly, but though he ached with exhaustion, sleep eluded him. 

“Pete?” he whispered.

“Yeah, Ray?” From the sound of his voice, McVries had been lying awake too.

“I can’t sleep,” he confessed. “I’m scared that if I do, I’ll wake up on the road, on my feet, getting my third warning.”

There was a brief silence, then McVries said, “I’m afraid that if I fall asleep, I’ll be wasting this time. I want to feel what it’s like to lie down and be warm, and I’m afraid I’ll wake up getting dragged to my feet to get back on the road.”

Garraty didn’t know what to say. Those fears couldn’t both be true, but they felt equally likely. For lack of anything better—and because he wanted to, and he might never get another chance—he put his arm around McVries. The other boy stiffened slightly, then rolled over to do the same to Garraty. His arm was a solid weight over Garraty's shoulders, as real as the sting and ache of his feet or the lingering taste of plums and honey in his mouth.

“You’re warm now,” Garraty said. He felt McVries nod. Then, lying in each other’s arms, the boys fell fast asleep.

Garraty awoke to the warmth of McVries’ body beside him, and a translucent light filtering through the cracks in the door. He hurt, very badly and everywhere. When he moved, the pain increased enough to make him gasp. 

But he was alive. He was alive, and McVries was alive, his eyes open and watchful. Maybe all the boys who had walked long enough to meet the tornado were alive and free, lying or sitting in some hiding place and trying to make sense of their deliverance. 

“You hear anything?” McVries asked.

They were silent, listening. But there was nothing but the occasional tentative chirp of birds. 

“I don’t think the soldiers are out there,” Garraty said at last. “Not yet, anyway. If we leave now, we might be able to get a long way before they come back. We might even make it to Canada.”

“That’s a long walk,” said McVries.

“Well,” Garraty said, “We’ve had lots of practice.”

And then they were both laughing, tears running down their faces as they got up, walking despite the knifelike pain in their feet, and pushed up the door to greet the dawn.


End file.
